As every digital marketer and social media user knows; new, useful tools pop up all the time and those still around, evolve while some lose their popularity. In 2017, we had a lot of social media tools – new, old and revamped. This article features our top Twitter tools of 2017:

1. AgorapulseAgorapulse is a social media management tool for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+ and LinkedIn. You can use Agorapulse to monitor your mentions in the Social Inbox, to publish and schedule updates and there are also monitoring features with multiple keywords, keywords to avoid and location/language settings, Twitter reports and a very handy CRM tool which tells you whether you have any influencers or brand ambassadors following you. Hot, right?

2. HootsuiteAnother all-in-one social media management dashboard that works with over 35 different social networks. You can use it to manage multiple social accounts from one place, publish and schedule content, set up monitoring searches, create lists and create analytics reports.

3. Sprout SocialSprout Social works with Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and Instagram. Similar to Agorapulse, it has an inbox where you get all of your social media mentions, a content calendar for publishing and scheduling updates, analytics features and a CRM tool for help managing your followers.

4. TweetDeckTweetDeck by Twitter is a Twitter tool to help you manage your account. There are multiple streams on your dashboard (such as home tweets, notifications, Twitter lists and DMs, just to mention a few). Apart from monitoring your Twitter account, you can also publish and schedule tweets and add images to them.

5. OktopostA B2B social media management dashboard that provides all the tools you need to keep on track of your social media marketing. Publish and schedule updates, check your social analytics, find great curated content to share with your audience, monitor and listen to your audience, engage with your followers, all in one place.

6. MavSocialThis is a social media management dashboard whose biggest focus is visual content. Publish and schedule content with the editorial calendar, create media galleries, monitor campaigns and find great new images to share with your social media audience.

7. BufferBuffer, my personal favourite, works with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest and you can easily share great content, including images and videos and add content to your queue as you browse the web, with their browser extensions.

8. Twitter AuditHaving problems with ghost followers? With Twitter Audit, you check to see exactly how many of your followers are real – you’ve got one free check, but then you can get the Pro version to continue auditing your followers, to block your fake followers and get a monthly audit report.

9. FollowerwonkMoz’s Followerwonk is a Twitter analytics tool that helps you take a deeper look at your followers: their locations, their tweets and so on. Plus, you can also use it to find and connect with social influencers.

10. KloutKlout used to be a tool for scoring yourself on social media – basically, the bigger your Klout score, the bigger your influence online. Now, not only does it tell you how influential you are, but it also aims to help you become more successful on social by suggesting great content to share and more.
There you have it. Our top 10 twitter tools of 2017. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Graphic Design Trends to Look Out for in 2018

As the year comes to an end, 2017 ushers out the old, and heralds the new graphic design trends that designers should keep abreast of in 2018. Alongside creative and bold typography come double exposure duo tone visuals, augmented and virtual reality, vivid colours plus gradients, and bespoke illustrations. In no particular order, these trends are listed below.

Creative typographyInstead of the standard and commonplace type, unique hand drawn designs are standing out from the crowd. These include creative and bold typography, cropped typography, and typography that interacts with real life elements.

Double exposure duo tone and double light visualsUnlike conventional double exposure photos, this style fuses duo tones to create one visual made of two overlapping images in monochrome colours. Double colour lightor colour channel splits, which comprise two actual light sources to develop a more modern look, are also on the rise.

Augmented Reality & Virtual RealityGoogle, Apple and IKEA have already begun incorporating augmented reality into their products plus services. As AR and VR gain traction, it’s anticipated that more brands and designers will incorporate these technologies and 3D shapes into their portfolios. The applications extend beyond just advertising and marketing, but also lifestyle, education, architecture, interior design, retail, and travel.

Vivid colours and gradientsInstagram redesigned its logo to a simpler and more colourful gradient design and now, other brands have taken a ‘vivid colours and gradients’ page from the company. This style also ties in closely with colourful 3D graphics and colour fonts to make the colours pop.

Hand drawn, customised illustrationsThis year saw the likes of Google, Airbnb and McDonald’s opting for bespoke illustrations in their campaigns, and it likely won’t stop here. Get ready for more hand drawn, personalised graphics that fuse with 3D, bold colours, double exposure, and paper cutouts.

Dos and Don’ts of Researching Keywords to Improve SEO

SEO keywords not only help sites when it comes to search engine indexing, they also help see to it that people find your website when they search for something that you might be offering. It’s extremely important for businesses to know how their consumers refer to their products or services. Having the right keywords in the right amounts will help boost your site’s ranking on search engines like Google. You should not craft content for your website without first thoroughly researching keywords. Below are seven dos and don’ts to researching keywords.

To find the best keywords and phrases to use, it would be best if you do not just run one search. Do multiple initial searches then go through the process again month on month. In doing so, you will see patterns forming and general trend insights that will do your business a lot of good.

Also, do keep in mind that if you plan on using search ads for your website, targeting the most common keywords can be a tad expensive. This is because you’ll surely be competing with your industry rivals for the same words and phrases. But if you have an expanded list, you have plenty of viable terms to play with. You can gain traction for your site without much of an expense compared to if you vie for easy, common, or popular search terms.

Now that you have keywords, do make them work for you by incorporating them into your site content. Focus on areas of your site that carry a high-appeal index. This means that you should use keywords in places that the visitors will first notice them like in titles, categories, and even on URLs. Also use them on Meta tags, anchor text, and path files.

Don’t attempt to create something per keyword, as this will be an impossible feat.

Don’t stuff content pieces with too many of them as well.

Do group these words and phrases. Create easily scaleable and manageable groups of terms and create content to carry these groups.

Do create your own variations of these words and phrases apart from the general keywords that you find through your research. Put yourself in the shoes of your consumer and this will help ease this process out.

Create a Great Marketing plan with The Power of 6

As a small business owner, having a marketing plan, which outlines your company’s course for success is important. A marketing plan describes who your customers are, where they get information and how you expect to reach them. Having an in-depth layout of your marketing strategy can reveal opportunities from a new audience or potential product line, pitfalls in pricing, competition reaction, and potential reach. Here are 5 tips to creating a great marketing plan.

Know your target market.

Before you can write a marketing plan, you need to find and understand the specific demographic you’re targeting. Research your target market by asking those within it.

Why should a customer use your business?

Figure out the core need that your product or service will meet; is it to help your customers do their job more efficiently? Be respected and admired by friends? Your product/service should be designed to solve client problems or meet customer needs better than the competition can.

Identify your competitors

Small businesses seldom take the time to study their competitors in depth, or determine competition that may be outside their industry but just as capable of luring the customer away. Knowing who they are, what their core competitive advantages are and how they will respond to your offering will help you figure out strategies to combat such losses.

Let your customers know what your brand symbolises.

You should be able to write down a simple declarative sentence of how you will meet customer needs and beat the competition. The best positioning statements are those that are single-minded and focus on solving a problem for the customer in a way that promotes the best value.

Do an audit

Auditing your business, which you can do with the help of a third-party contractor, can help you recover if your initial marketing strategy doesn’t give you the results you wanted. Understand what products or services you are offering, then identify who you help and how you help them. Next, check all your marketing platforms to ensure they reflect that message. This will help you avoid a disconnect with the audience.

Marketing Approach

How do you plan to reach that target customer? Here are two marketing channels to use asides broadcast and print media:

Social media. Every type of customer is on some type of social media platform, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn. Focus on the ones that can benefit your business the most. Figure out where your customers are spending their time, and set up shop on those platforms. Develop a content strategy that can be executed internally, and then execute your strategy by posting branded content on your selected platforms.

Email marketing may not be as new a concept as social media marketing but it is an effective and popular choice for small business owners. Companies can implement email marketing techniques in a number of ways, including newsletters, promotional campaigns and transactional emails.

In conclusion, creating a well-defined list of budgets, goals and action items, with appropriate personnel assigned to each, can help make your marketing plan a reality.

Digital Marketing Tips to Drive Website Traffic

So, you have this awesome website to help you present your brand to potential customers but how do you get them to visit your website and purchase your product/service? Below are easy digital marketing tips you can use to drive traffic to your website.

Google Local

This is one of the few digital marketing shortcuts a business can take when trying to appear to their target audience on Google search. It takes little work to set up Google Local; once set up your business will automatically appear for your primary service.

Create Social media page

Social media websites and apps are some of the most popular sites in the world with Facebook in the lead. By setting up social media profiles, posting and sharing content and getting involved with conversations in your industry, you will be able to communicate with your potential customers. You will also build your brand and attract traffic to your website, which can then lead to sales.

Know that content is king

Create content that is engaging for your potential customers. You can do this by writing naturally in a conversational tone; don’t be too focused on sales as this can turn customers off. Be unique and make sure to use relevant keywords.

Provide links to your website

Another way to get a higher ranking for your brand on Google is by having high quality links from other websites point to your website. It makes your website look more popular. Think about potential areas you can gain links from and ask for a link to your site.

Image optimization

This is often overlooked but equally important to get right. If you want to help your image and page rank Google and Google image search, you will need to make sure to optimize your images to be picked up by search engines.

Send E-shots

Sending e-shots or emails to your database of clients can go a long way in driving traffic to your website. The latest software can make it easy to send out emails in as little as 20 minutes. If you are writing new content, make sure people who are already interested in your products/services are receiving your latest updates via emails.

Brand consistency

Finally, make sure your colours, logos, product/service information and everything to do with your brand online is consistent. There has to be cohesion in the messages being passed across on all your social media platforms and website. It won’t do to offer a product/service on your social media that isn’t available on your website. It will turn customers off and drive them to your competition.